Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays eBook

Now the point must not be missed in this way.
What is wrong with the tyranny in Africa is not that
it is run by soldiers. It would be quite as
bad, or worse, if it were run by policemen. What
is wrong is that, for the first time since Pagan times,
private men are being forced to work for a private
man. Men are being punished by imprisonment or
exile for refusing to accept a job. The fact
that Botha can ride on a horse, or fire off a gun,
makes him better rather than worse than any man like
Sidney Webb or Philip Snowden, who attempt the same
slavery by much less manly methods. The Liberal
Party will try to divert the whole discussion to one
about what they call militarism. But the very
terms of modern politics contradict it. For
when we talk of real rebels against the present system
we call them Militants. And there will be none
in the Servile State.

THE SERVILE STATE AGAIN

I read the other day, in a quotation from a German
newspaper, the highly characteristic remark that Germany
having annexed Belgium would soon re-establish its
commerce and prosperity, and that, in particular,
arrangements were already being made for introducing
into the new province the German laws for the protection
of workmen.

I am quite content with that paragraph for the purpose
of any controversy about what is called German atrocity.
If men I know had not told me they had themselves
seen the bayoneting of a baby; if the most respectable
refugees did not bring with them stories of burning
cottages—­yes, and of burning cottagers
as well; if doctors did not report what they do report
of the condition of girls in the hospitals; if there
were no facts; if there were no photographs, that
one phrase I have quoted would be quite sufficient
to satisfy me that the Prussians are tyrants; tyrants
in a peculiar and almost insane sense which makes
them pre-eminent among the evil princes of the earth.
The first and most striking feature is a stupidity
that rises into a sort of ghastly innocence.
The protection of workmen! Some workmen, perhaps,
might have a fancy for being protected from shrapnel;
some might be glad to put up an umbrella that would
ward off things dropping from the gentle Zeppelin
in heaven upon the place beneath. Some of these
discontented proletarians have taken the same view
as Vandervelde their leader, and are now energetically
engaged in protecting themselves along the line of
the Yser; I am glad to say not altogether without
success. It is probable that nearly all of the
Belgian workers would, on the whole, prefer to be
protected against bombs, sabres, burning cities, starvation,
torture, and the treason of wicked kings. In
short, it is probable—­it is at least possible,
impious as is the idea—­that they would
prefer to be protected against Germans and all they
represent. But if a Belgian workman is told that
he is not to be protected against Germans, but actually
to be protected by Germans, I think he may be excused
for staring. His first impulse, I imagine, will
be to ask, “Against whom? Are there any
worse people to come along?”